


Come Join Heather in Hell

by The_Doom_Dahlia



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Cigarettes, Cultural References, Eye Horror, Eye Trauma, F/F, F/M, Ghost Town, Hallucination References, Multi, References to Alcohol, References to Drugs, Suicide Attempt, Tiger Lillies Lyrics, Tooth Horror, chapter 5 is where the JDonica ends, jason dean is garbage, shit's getting dark in the second chapter y'all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 18:50:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5713261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Doom_Dahlia/pseuds/The_Doom_Dahlia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the former's birthday, horror enthusiasts Veronica Sawyer and Jason Dean make their way to a little abandoned town at the edge of Ohio, expecting to explore the creepy place and speed away as soon as they're done, no worse for wear.</p><p>Oh how terribly, <b>awfully</b> wrong they were.</p><p>Idea originally formed by 'heaatherduke' on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Birthday Trip

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics at the beginning are from 'Forget About Us' by the Tiger Lillies.
> 
> Original idea by Diagnonsense, writing by me. If they want to put up a chapter of their own (which i hope they do), the author will be designated in these notes.

_‘So when you see me smile and laugh, believe me it's just a mask. Because I see through all the shit, let your throat me slit. Forget about us. Don’t make a-’_

“So, where are you taking me anyway, Mr. Skellington?” Veronica asked teasingly, muffling the sounds of JD’s radio as they rumbled down the road, cigarette smoldering betwixt her fingers and birthday hat glinting in the light of the moon. He’d snatched her up from her party with the biggest smile, promising that he’d found the holy grail of creepy sights. After nearly six months of showing her the ‘creepiest shit’ he knew of on every date they went on, and getting no reactions, she knew that he was taking her lack of terror as a challenge.

JD chuckled, snuffing out his own smoke on the steering wheel, the radio switching to some Sisters of Mercy song. “You remember that story I told you about? The one dad told me about that town that was abandoned about thirty years ago for reasons no one knows? The one he didn’t tell me the name of because he thought I’d piss myself?” he inquired, eyes twinkling with an almost malevolent light.

“Yeah..” the girl in Prussian blue said slowly, confused. Then, it dawned on her. _“You didn’t!”_ she said in glee, a wide smile spreading across her cheeks.

“Sherwood, Ohio! It’s only about an hour away. I thought we could spend the night seeing what we can see. Happy birthday, Sally.” he said happily, chuckling as the brunette kissed his cheek and held his hand.

“Fuck, this is gonna be amazing!” Veronica said gleefully, eyes flashing in delight. She always loved exploring the stranger places, especially with JD. Hell, their first time had been spent after playing strip croquet by the cemetery. He was wonderful to her. A little bit of an ass, yeah, but what guy wasn’t?

About an hour later, they slowly parked, just outside of the town lines. From what Veronica could see, the houses were beginning to decay. The paint had long since grown pale on each place, pastel hues of different colors, paint chipped away from time and storms. The grass was overgrown and dead at the same time, and broken mailboxes sat, metal rusting, in the driveways, close to the sun-bleached bones of those house pets left tied to posts to rot away. If one were to look further, they could see brick buildings with slowly growing ivy running up their sides, dark green and stark against the bright crimson blocks. Power lines crisscrossed on the road, their long since dead, snapped wires laying like snakes across the desert, left behind after many hard storms and decades of neglect, the streetlights either completely off or shattered. It was a ghost town, as empty as Lazarus’s tomb.

JD grinned impishly to Veronica, who was staring in petrified awe at this relic to an age of cellphones the size of your fucking skull, Walkmen in pockets of giant pants and adults with asbestos lung. “You ready to do this, Sally?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

She looked to him, her deep brown eyes wide with wonder. Slowly, she grinned, kissing him quickly. “Let’s do this, Jack.” she said, intertwining their fingers as they stepped properly into the empty hamlet, exploring the place that would be their ultimate downfall.


	2. Glasgow Grin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JD and Veronica explore the ruins of Westerburg-and come across something unexpected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNING:** Body Horror, Eye Horror and Graphic Depictions of blood and violence within. Read on if you can.
> 
> (God, this is sounding more and more like a creepypasta with every new chapter.)

After a few hours of fucking around in some of the abandoned houses and businesses, JD helping Veronica over every downed power line as they made their way through town, their hands ever intertwined, they came upon the town’s high school. “WESTERBURG HIGH SCHOOL’ was still stark upon the white granite high above the doors, the red paint on the metal entries peeling and faded from years of neglect. The little lights on the roof above the entryways were still neatly hidden beneath their plastic casements, but they would never shine again. On one of the higher steps, painted black and red, sat a smashed intercom speaker, obviously blown off by some storm.

“You sure we can get in?” Veronica asked, watching as her boyfriend shoved at the door, the metal creaking as it opened wide for them, slow and deafening from disuse.

“If that’s not ‘getting in’, I don’t know what is.” JD chuckled, grinning toothily and taking her hand to tug her along insistently. The school was almost pristine, save for a thick layer of dust, rust and small amounts of decay over everything, and some papers and such askew on the tiled floor. In fact, with a bit of cleaning and general maintenance, the place would be safe enough for students to return to their studies. But that would never happen, not amidst all the other decay.

“This is fucking amazing.” Veronica murmured. “It looks like people were here just a year or two ago.”

“Yeah, hard to believe that it’s been thirty years, huh?” JD chuckles, eyes flashing in that same, almost malevolent fashion. It scared her a little, how close Jason Dean danced betwixt being pleasantly spooky and downright terrifying. It also excited her, but damn if she would admit it. Instead, they walked through the darkened halls, flashlight glinting off of the steel.

Suddenly, the sound of feet on the bare linoleum echoed in their ears. JD shushed her, and the sounds went quiet. A shadow appeared at the edge of the hall, and, slowly, he reached into his pocket, removing a revolver, making Veronica jump in surprise. “What the fuck are you doing!?” she whispered sharply, trying to grab it from him.

He broke away from her grip, hissing back “If this is a fucking rabid dog or some dumb-ass looter, I’m not fucking dying here, Sally!”, but his grip loosened slightly around the gun, stepping closer and raising the flashlight so that he could see the figure. “Hey there!” JD greeted, voice cautiously optimistic as he came even closer to the figure. “Look, we’re just here to look around. It’s her birthday, and we like creepy shit, so we wanted to come around here.”

The figure didn’t move yet, just moved its head strangely, like it was trying to find out where the voice was coming from. The beam of light didn’t reach far enough to catch a good sight of the person, but Veronica could see its silhouette, head moving around gently, arms moving in a flapping motion.

JD’s expression darkened at the lack of a response. “Hey! I’m over here, dumbass. Look, I just wanna be friends, so don’t fuck with us, and we won’t fuck with you.” he barked, starting to get angry. When Veronica heard him growl, she could sense tingles of his father within him, even if he didn’t see it, and it petrified her.

Slowly, the figure began moving closer, making Veronica step back as JD held up the flashlight higher, hauling up the revolver again with a look of darkened anger in his deep green eyes “I said, don’t fuck with-!”

His voice dropped suddenly, an expression of pure terror shooting up his spine as the specter revealed itself. Veronica wailed in revulsion, feeling bile rise and burn in her throat, swallowing it down as she gazed over to the being, clinging to JD like he was her lifeline.

The girl was draped in a tattered white dress and yellow blazer, which would have looked cheery and lovely had they not been made slightly rusty from the dried blood on them. A small necklace shaped like a yellow heart, equally stained with dried vermilion, had deep set bite marks in it, some of them dull, some of them appearing to have poked holes through the chewable plastic. Her hair was browned in spots from where the crimson liquid had dried, but most of it still shone blonde in the glow of the flashlight. Her feet were bare, with dark cuts on them from previous movements. Her blazer and dress were torn deeply, having marks that looked violently fresh and made by **_claws_** , gashes deep and dark from blood.

But that wasn’t what almost made Veronica sick. It was the long claws the girl sported at the ends of her pale hands, sharp as axes, and tipped in dried blood. They were gnarled and jagged, and clicked against each other as her fingers flicked. And the eyes... _dear GOD, her eyes_. They were pits, showing only muscle behind the round hole where her eye should have been. They blinked, and Veronica could **see** the muscles twitching behind the hole, like the eye was trying to move to look. But instead, the girl just stared at them, empty-eyed and smiling. But not of her own volition.

For across her face, ear to ear and as scarlet as Hester Prynne, was a Glasgow Grin that was still dripping onto her clothes and onto the floor. No seams to shut it, just exposed muscle and skin and _red_.

After a few more moments, adrenaline kicked in and JD barked out ‘RUN GODDAMMIT!” and sprinted off, grabbing Ronnie’s hand and firing wildly at the thing, which quickly followed in hot pursuit, breathing heavy and quick, but very high-pitched in tone as she left behind a cherry trail in her wake.

They kept running before ducking into a science lab, both taking belabored breaths. Veronica’s mind was running at a mile a minute, thinking about all she had seen, while JD murmured ‘holy fucking shit’ like a mantra. **_‘Redyellowcutsclawsnoeyesnoeyes-NO EYES.’_** Those two words stuck out. If the creature had no eyes, than it must sense movement through..

She smashed a hand over JD’s mouth, then over her own, making him breathe out of his nose with her, both taking as shallow breaths as they could. They could hear the sounds of the girl outside, claws clicking as she listened for them. All was quiet until the sounds of the figure faded away as she fled to look elsewhere. They both gasped in relief, but remained quiet out of fear.

For if a beast that awful could live in here..what else did?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING FOR NEXT CHAPTER:** Body and Tooth horror, continued graphic depictions of violence.
> 
> If you cannot handle these, finish reading here.
> 
> If you can, read on.


	3. Rows Upon Rows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica begins to see the mistake she made in coming to Sherwood, and she and JD come upon a girl that's more bone than flesh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNING:** Tooth and body horror below.

As soon as the shock wore off, JD slowly rose, legs shaky as he clung to the counter behind them, Veronica hooking her arm through his in order to stand alongside him. He flicked the flashlight back on, the light blinding for a split second (making Veronica as blind as that thing had been) before their eyes adjusted to the dusty, dirty science lab.

“JD.” she whispered, voice shaky as she gazed at her boyfriend, hazel eyes blown out wider than usual from terror. “JD, we need to get out of here.” she murmured, hearing the soft jingle of her bracelets, the party hat on her head long gone, fallen off either amongst the debris of the town, or in the blood stains strewn across the hall (or hell, maybe that girl with no eyes had found it and was wearing it, what a laugh, ha ha ha). “I don’t feel fucking safe here.”

“Don’t worry, V. It was probably just a hallucination.” he said, vainly attempting to calm her.

“JD, neither of us are high or drunk right now, how the fuck can we be having a shared hallucination! We both saw and heard that fucking thing!” she growled out, amazed at his lack of a response. It was like he didn’t give a shit about how terrified she was. ( _'Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to date a guy whose dad fucking jerked off to building explosions and who, himself, carried a goddamn revolver with him to a ghost town'_ , her mind squealed at her.)

He clutched her face tight, and she could almost feel the blood rising to breach from the marks he was making in her cheeks with his nails. His nails didn’t go in deep enough though, far too short.

“Veronica. It was just a hallucination. We’ll get out of here, I promise. There wasn’t anything there, okay?” he murmured, voice low and steady. The brush of his lips on her forehead almost made her believe him, but she could have sworn she felt the creature’s breath on her neck, warm and shaky and reeking of decay. She didn’t say it though, only smiled vaguely up at him as he wrapped an arm around her to steady her.

The flashlight moved around and around in his grip, illuminating the test tubes, still in their wooden holders, empty and stained from what had once been within. The shards of some fallen ones littered the floor, and Ronnie was careful as she stepped over them. She could see where chemicals had been spilled, some of them having eaten away at the floor beneath them, and-was some of that on the wall? Like it had been thrown? She could see parts of the brick wall, cleaner than others and marked by what appeared to be acid. It confused and worried her, as did the flurry of papers and textbooks, torn to shreds by..what? _‘Probably that thing in the hall.’_ her mind jibbered, and the other half barked that it was just a hallucination, like JD had said.

“Hey babe, look at this!” JD whispered, chuckling. This broke her from her reverie, and she turned to look at him, flashlight pointed to a laboratory skeleton, dusty and beginning to break from age. This didn’t get her attention though.

“Babe..where’s its teeth?” she asked, pointing. He blinked curiously, then turned, finally noticing that the jaw of the skull was empty, little dips still in the jawbone where teeth used to poke up like tombstones.

“That’s weird.” he shrugged, and something in Veronica’s head screamed _‘Really? We just had a shared hallucination of a weird chick with no eyes and claws and THIS is fucking weird to you!?’_

Veronica turned to look out of the window, seeing the sky grow pitch black, tiny pinpoints of light spread across the sky. She knew that they had to get home before her mother and father started calling the cops and shit. Vaguely, she could hear the clicking of bones, and rolled her eyes. “JD, stop fucking with the skeleton, we gotta go.”

“Uh..that’s not me.” he said, and she turned to find him standing away from the skeleton, the boney clattering echoing louder in the tiny room. A rush of cold terror ran down Ronnie’s back as the source of the clicking entered her field of sight. Only one word shot through her skull, a pointless, terrified echolalia of her own words: **TEETH**.

Molars and canines emerged from every part of the girl, in varying hues and states of decay. Ronnie could see the little faux teeth of the skeleton emerging from somewhere in the girl’s neck. Her eyes, unlike the girl in the hall, were normal and pale brown, but were submerged in malice and pure hatred. Her clothing looked camouflaged from the juxtaposition of rusty dried blood and emerald green, and had multiple holes jabbed through from all of the teeth jutting out from her skin. The base of her blazer was torn away where her stomach would be, destroyed by all of the teeth there. However, all the teeth on the girls body looked surprisingly dull.

But outside of her mouth, the teeth were sharp and jagged and stained with blood, cracked in places, but still absolutely horrifying. Veronica felt the numbing sensation of shock overtake her just long enough to watch the girl grin and open her mouth, revealing shark-like sets of teeth, all the way to where her throat began, rows upon rows of pearly white agony.

The shot of white needles in the woman’s mouth was enough for Veronica and JD to finally run, holding back their wails of agonized fear so they wouldn’t alert whatever wandered the halls, spurred on by the cloud clicking of the woman's fangs as she tried to bite them into ribbons. Eventually, they burst through the back doors of the school to stand amongst the dried grass and rusted croquet wickets. For the sparest second, Vern thought that they were free, not seeing the terror in green following them anymore.

Until they heard the gentle ‘scrape-scrape-scrape’ of a croquet mallet upon stones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING:** Continued body horror in the next chapter.


	4. Acid Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trifecta is completed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **BODY HORROR AHEAD.**

When Veronica heard the creature approaching, her mind began coming up with the most grotesque possibilities  
as to what it could be. If whatever dwelled in the halls and the science lab were that awful, she could only picture  
what their leader must look like. She pictured some terrifying appropriation of Kali, Hindu goddess of time and  
death, with even more arms and the same level of bloodlust. She pictured Medusa, hair made of intertwining  
serpents, turning her and JD to stone, then smashing them to dust with her mallet. Visions of a nephilite, huge and  
macabre, Cain’s lost child, come to avenge their ancestor, of angels, not the pretty kind on the stained glass  
windows, but the kind the Bible spoke of, with voices like multitudes and eyes of fire and **_VERY_** bad news  
from God. 

So, while she was still horrified upon seeing the monster emerge from the blackened woods, she had to confess:  
she was just a touch disappointed. 

This one looked more like a zombie than anything, pale with blotches of dark purple from blood vessels beneath  
her skin where their contents had settled. Her body moved stiffly, as though affected by rigor mortis, and was  
draped in a crimson, silken robe with flowers all along it. Her blonde hair somehow still looked soft and neat, as though it  
had been cleaned in some river in the forest from whence she came (although Ronnie could still see bloody spots),  
and her eyes were an empty, milky white. Her chin, neck and upper chest appeared to have been burned by acid,  
and she could see little holes where blood had pooled and dried. 

Veronica and JD made no movements for the third time, although this was less out of horror and more for survival.  
They figured that the girl with the croquet mallet (smashed and splintered, but still scary) might be like a t-rex or the  
girl in the hall: movement might trigger an attack. 

To their agony, they were wrong. The thing turned to stare at them, pale, milky eyes transfixed upon their petrified  
expressions. Slowly, the monster smiled, showing a set of surprisingly perfect teeth (whatever had made her that  
way had given her her teeth back, apparently) caked in blood. The thing opened its mouth wide, and they could  
both see the destroyed mouth, tongue and even parts of her throat, the flashlight making the violent burns more  
evident. 

And then the beast screamed.

The wail was ear-shattering, and Veronica and JD collapsed to their knees, hands  
clamped over their ears. Just as soon as it began, it ended, and Ronnie could feel the ringing slowly stop, and  
peeled her hands away to stare, wide-eyed, at the blood on them. In the back of her mind, she could hear JD  
screaming in pain, but only wondered what purpose the scream had, whether it was in defense or to stun them long  
enough so she could kill. 

All of a sudden, cold awareness spread down her spine as she heard the clicking of teeth against teeth, and  
smelled heavy blood that could have only leaked from one source. Veronica stood slowly, turning to confirm her  
fears. 

_Heh._ The thing in the hall really _had_ stolen her party hat.


	5. Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JD and Veronica try to stay alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No gore warning in this chapter.

As soon as the stupor of terror broke, Veronica and JD combined their weight and speed to break past the beasts. Their combined wails echoed through the empty halls of Westerburg, closely followed by the grotesque noises their attackers made. All they wanted was survival, but they knew that those.. _things_ wouldn’t stop until they were nothing but bones greying in some boiler room or wherever the beasts would shove their remains after the meat had been picked clean.

Finally, they saw light coming from outside and burst through the doors of the high school, tripping their way down the dusty, glass and rock strewn steps. As they breached the last step, Veronica looked back to see the doors suddenly burst open behind them, the growling and hissing of the beasts rising in volume as they traveled quickly behind them, the yellow blur at the head of the pack.

“KEEP RUNNING!” JD called to her, face forward.

“OH YEAH, I WAS JUST ABOUT TO STOP TO TAKE A DEEP BREATH.” Veronica hissed back, sarcastic and scared.

“MOVE FASTER, RONNIE.”

“I’M TRYING!”

They ran down the debris strewn streets of Sherwood, the hot breath of the creatures at their backs. ‘This is it, this is it, this is gonna be how I fucking die’ Ronnie thought, eyes flicking from JD to the beasts, hearing the rapid clicking of teeth against teeth, watching small acid stains form on the front of the beast in red’s blazer, and smelling the blood dripping from the leader’s mouth.

When Veronica turned back to look at JD, she began laughing in relief, the gate of the town in sight. A few more feet and they’d be free. Suddenly, her body dropped like a stone, foot caught in a pothole and ankle twisting and making an ugly noise as it did. She screamed in pain and fear as JD’s hand slipped out from her own. “JD, get back here and fucking help me!” She wailed, trying to stand and follow him out.

Ronnie saw him turn on a dime and stare at her, eyes boring holes into her soul. She could almost see the movement of the scales in his head, dipping back and forth. A roar, like a gunshot blast, broke his thought, and she saw him sprint away from her. “No, no, JD, get back here, **don’t let me die here** , **_YOU SON OF A BITCH!_** ” She screamed, digging her nails into the road as she tried desperately to haul herself to his feet and follow him. All in vain, however, as she saw his car peel away, leaving a cloud of dust, tire treads in the dirt, and her, in its wake.

She was alone now. All alone, with death following just behind. She could hear the beasts grow close, and she turned back to look at them.

Drool dripped from the mouths of the creatures in yellow and green, hunger bright and steely in their eyes. But the creature between them caught her attention and her terror most. She stood over her, pale, acid burns down her chin and throat, holes in her blazer. The monster looked terrifying to say the least, and Veronica felt all the fear that she hadn’t had on first sight suddenly claw at her throat. The beast in red looked like the Devil, and that sparked her last ditch effort, her final shot at survival.

“WAIT!” She screamed to the creature in the center, shocking the other two out of their movements. “ ** _I’LL MAKE A DEAL WITH YOU._** "

The beast in red grabbed her companions’ shoulders tight. “Stop.” she said icily, voice scratched all to hell and surprisingly soft. The other monsters complied, standing behind her. Her red plaid skirt brushed against her thighs as she walked over to where Ronnie laid. “You’ll make a deal with me?” She gargled, spitting up a bit of acid as her grin slowly grew.

“Y-Y-Yeah.” Ronnie stuttered out, eyes blown wide from fear. “I’ll..I’ll make a deal.”

Slowly, the creature reached down, grabbing Veronica’s hand tight and squeezing. A hissing noise filled the air, mingling with a yell of pain from the other girl as the hand tore away.

Veronica stared slowly at her palm, noticing an ‘A’ burned like acid into her hand. She felt her vision begin to spin, and she gazed up at the chucking demonness and her allies, wondering what in the name of God she’d just done as her body fell under, head hitting the pavement beneath her with a smack as everything fell into blackness.


	6. Barriers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica attempts an escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Vomiting.
> 
> To be honest, this chapter wouldn't be nearly as good as it is without lots of help from 'heaatherduke'. What can I say, they help me to be a better writer and person.

Veronica surged up in bed, brown eyes wide as saucers. For a single second, relief spilled down her frame in the form of cold sweat, and she laughed. A dream. It had all just been a terrible, terrible dream. No monsters, no Sherwood, no abandonment by the boy she loved. All of it had just been some grotesque, lucid nightmare.

She was about to rise from the bed and go downstairs for breakfast, when she felt the itching in her palm and realization clawed at her. With a slow, shaky movement, she removed her hand from beneath the torn, dirty pink sheets and raised it to the light (or at least, what little light streamed through the fog outside, and through the gap of a window). Embedded deep in her palm, precariously close to bone, was an ‘A’, etched into her skin like a cattle brand. This was no dream, the pain in her palm made it clear that it wasn’t.

Something in her stomach lurched, and Veronica had to claw her nails into the white blanket under her to keep herself from releasing what little was in her stomach. Her heart felt like a burning stone inside of her, sinking lower and lower as her breath shot in and out of her, feeling like knives in her throat. Her eyes dashed back and forth along her surroundings, frantic and trying to find answers.

The walls appeared to had once been coated in pale pink wallpaper, now torn away (along with everything to the foundation). The floor was hardwood, with holes in it that could have been made by a mallet, and deep claw marks on what wasn’t smashed. Glass shards littered the floor, glinting in what little light shined, from what might have been a lamp or a vase, she wasn’t sure. She could see smashed picture frames, their contents torn to shreds, recognizable only as confetti. More glass lay strewn across the floor by the gap in the wall, but Veronica could see where there had once been a window (although she could only tell from the tattered, moth eaten curtains framing the square hole).

But, what struck her was what else was strewn across the floor. Books, torn to confetti just like the photos, lay across the hardwood, their spines raised towards the ceiling. From her vantage point, Ronnie could see _The Bell Jar_ , _The Castrated Family_ , a copy of the Bible, and a spine of a book that had been torn to shreds, but that Ronnie could still make out two words on: ‘curing homosexuality’.

This was no nightmare, she knew that now. Everything had been real, the monsters, JD’s betrayal, the deal she’d made. Everything. And knowing that made her almost paralyzed with fear.

Still, she rose from bed, and stepped onto the creaking boards beneath, expecting a jolt of pain from her spraining her ankle in the pothole. To her surprise, there was no pain as she stepped onto the floor. No bruising either, just as normal as could be. Ronnie sighed in relief, then a sudden epiphany struck: _If my ankle isn’t sprained, I can run._

Snatching up her blazer, she sprinted down the stairs, careful not to sprain her ankle again or dig her sneakers into a shard of glass. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, staring at her surroundings again. The heavy smell of rotting food and drink hit her nose, and she hunched over, allowing her stomach to spill forth what it held. Tearing up at the stench, she raised her head to look blearily at her surroundings.

Much like the room upstairs, the walls were torn to their foundation in places, and the floor was strewn with glass and paper, remains of novels and picture frames, their contents peppering the ground like snow. A tv was practically powder off to the side, torn away from whatever had once held it. A crimson sofa sat, destroyed, in the center of the room, atop a clawed to ribbons rug. The floor had holes here too, leading down into darkness. The windows were gaps with glass strewn beneath, curtains torn apart. It was destruction, pure and simple.

But that wasn’t what made Veronica tremble in fear. Instead, heart pounding wildly, she stepped to the wall closest to the door, careful of glass and splinters, and gazed up at a portrait.

The picture was pretty enough, and appeared to depict a family scene. The family was well-dressed, the father in a three-piece suit, pinstriped grey, the mother curled in a gown as crimson as the couch behind her, jewels dripping down her pale skin. Their faces had been clawed so nothing of them could be seen. However, the child between them was intact.

She was wrapped in a small crimson dress, blonde curls streaming down her shoulders. She was standing ramrod straight, teeth straight and white and perfect, and her blue-grey eyes shown bright amidst the dull colors of the painting. She was the only thing kept completely intact, as though she was important somehow. And as Veronica stared at the artwork, it hit her exactly why.

She knew those eyes. Those eyes had shown bright with glee when their owner had burned the ‘A’ into her skin, and had flashed with the glow of death when she’d wailed for her friends.

It was the monster. The little girl was the monster, and that revelation made Veronica sick all over again, her terror making her adrenaline rise as she sprinted away in horror, repressing a wail just in case those monsters heard her.

The town was shrouded in fog, heavy enough to block everything ahead. “What is this, some Silent Hill bullshit?” She asked aloud, laughing manically, unable to keep herself from grinning. Whether it was from joy that she might be free soon, or terror that those monsters would find her, she did not know.

Veronica zigzagged through the streets, avoiding potholes and downed power lines with a speed that could have rivaled most of the track players in her school. Finally, she saw it: the road leading out of town and into the thicket of trees. Tears fired down her face as she launched towards her freedom, arms outstretched and eyes bright.

Suddenly, she felt her body slam against something and she fell back, pain rushing through her ribs. She blinked in surprise, staring up at the sky, shrouded in mist that veiled the sun above. Quickly, she got up, trying to get out again, but something kept her back. She swung her fists, smashed her shoulder into it, snatched up pieces of stone that flew through the air like there was no barrier at all, screamed in agony, and did everything she could. But to no avail.

So, she ran. She ran past diseased trees, past rusted, decaying cars and overgrown croquet lawns. Past a large church with claw marks and teeth gashes all along its outsides (she couldn’t see in), and a stagnant lake where mosquitoes made a cloud almost as thick as the fog that encapsulated everything. She ran through the dawn to where the forest would begin, and found a barrier there too. She repeated her actions, using pine-cones and rocks and swearing violently at the barrier.

This she repeated, on each side of the town, finding her ways out all blocked off. Until, finally, she circled back, hands cut up by rocks, knuckles bloody, to the entrance into town. Slowly, she sunk to her knees deep into the dirt of the road and a choked sob cut her lungs, weeping as she smashed her hands against the invisible barrier a few more times. The beating eventually slowed and stopped, leaving only the echoing of her weeping and the whistling of the wind.

But somewhere, in the back of her mind, she heard it. The same damnable laughter the demon in red had made when she made her deal. She turned, and witnessed as the monster in red emerged from the haze, eyes bright, almost looking like the eyes of the child in the painting. “Oh, Veronica. Sweet, sweet Veronica.” She hissed, voice low and growling, accompanied by a sharp cough that brought up bright blue to her lips and down her chin. “You should know better. Don’t you think we would have run away if we could? Oh no, Ronnie. You’re stuck here. Just like the rest of us.”

As she spoke, her companions appeared, palms raised to show ‘A’s burned into the flesh. Their leader raised her own, showing the same exact brand.

Ronnie could only bend inward on herself and weep harder, even as she felt the rough, sharp nailed hand of the demon run through her hair.

“You made a deal with me for your life, Veronica. I think it’s time you start paying your debt.”


	7. Paying Debts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blood is shed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is a thing again, yay
> 
> TW: vomit and references to gruesome murder in this

The Behnfeldt road in Defiance County, Ohio runs just parallel to Sherwood. The separation between the two is a vast forest. If one were to walk through this forest from Sherwood to the side of Behnfeldt road without stopping, it would take around an hour. It used to be a nice hiking place for people passing by the town, the trip a lovely, peaceful distraction from the humdrum place. Of course, everyone in Ohio knew that no one and no thing would make that trip ever again after the peace was shattered back in the 80s. The whole town was abandoned, a Centralia without the coal fire, and for all the world knew, the only creatures living there were crows, ravens, and deer from the forest.

The road, however, still had human life along it. Small lives, yes, but life nonetheless. Truckers from small companies and with smaller ties to the world at large, the few travelling salesmen left, lonely folks using the road as a soothing force to distract them from empty beds and emptier hearts. People no one would miss were they to simply vanish from the face of the Earth.

On the night of October the second, the road was empty save for a single car. Despite the chill of the evening the windows of the grey sedan were rolled down to release the copious amount of smoke pouring from the cigar of the driver, a blank-faced travelling salesman. As he puffed away, mind filled to the brim with information that would mean nothing in the long run, he was aware of the drone of the news anchor on the radio and turned it up to try and understand more.

 _“-will take several weeks to rebuild.”_ The anchor paused, gathering up their information. _“In Defiance County, the search continues for seventeen year old Veronica Sawyer. According to her boyfriend, Jason ‘JD’ Dean, he lost track of Sawyer two weeks ago while on an evening camping trip and has no idea where she could be. His alibi has been accepted by the Defiance County Police Department, and he has been released from police custody. Search parties continue to comb the towns of Pauling, Antwerp, and Holgate, the area of search growing with each new party sent out. If you have any information on where Veronica Sawyer could be, call your local police department immediately. More details to come at eleven. A group of tourists went missing while near-”_

The man shut off the radio with a huff, blowing more smoke into the night air and gazing up for a moment at the vast blackness of the too-clouded sky above. “Bet she just ran off with some other guy. Fuckin’ teenagers.” he grumbled, snuffing out the cigar on the dashboard of his car and tossing it out of the window. “All a bunch of little blood-sucking monsters.”

He drove only a mile or so more before he noticed a figure on the side of the road, waving frantically. Feeling generous, he nudged his car into the shoulder of the road, nestling it into a small alcove of trees still clearly visible to passing cars. With a groan and the creak of old bones, he emerged from the vehicle and came face-to-face with the girl who flagged him down. Her dark hair was wild and her eyes even more so. The clothes on her back were slightly tattered and there were marks on her from being injured. She looked as though she’d been running from some great and terrible creature, having managed to slip from its grasp a few times before getting to the side of the road to try and escape. The first thing that came from her mouth were the words “Come with me.”, as she grabbed onto his arm with dirty fingernails.

He broke away from her with a look of disgust. “Look, lady, I don’t have all night. Get in the car and I’ll get you to a doctor or something.” The man argued, holding up his briefcase. “I have to get up to Maumee before daylight.”

But the girl wouldn’t listen, grabbing onto his arm with bleary, immense eyes. “Please, you have to come with me. My boyfriend, there was a bear, and my boyfriend - oh God _, oh God_ ** _, oh God._** ” she babbled out, beginning to cry. She clung to herself, gazing at the stranger with pleading eyes. “Please sir, I’ll do anything if you just come with me.” she begged.

Lecherous ideas flooded into the man’s head as he mulled over her words. “Anything, you say?” he asked. When the girl nodded, a grin slipped over his face and he removed a cigar from his pocket and lit it, taking a heavy drag from it. “I suppose I can take half an hour and follow you. As long as you hold up your end of the bargain.” he agreed, the smoke puffing into her face and making her eyes water. Taking hold of her wrist and looking her up and down, he grinned at her with a certain, stomach churning look in his eyes.

His gaze made Veronica want to throw up which, strangely enough, comforted her. The fact that she could still feel things, even if it was just disgust, was a relief. With careful, measured steps, she began to lead him into the woods.

As they made the trek, she could only make out certain things about the man who she was bringing along behind her. His name was Harvey, he claimed to be swamped in awards and prestige, and he was a disgusting pig of a man who wouldn’t stop blowing his cigar smoke into her face. The scent and his words made her stomach continue to churn and splutter inside her. 

But, as they got closer to Sherwood, the smell of cigar smoke began to fade away, overtaken by the usual scent of the town: peeling paint and chipping bricks, dying plants and hints of blood. Gazing up into the thinning clusters of trees and leaves, she could see crows and ravens gazing down at her with their beady, empty black eyes glinting in what little light could be filtered through the canopy of leaves and the fog. Briefly, in the barest back of her mind, she wondered what time it was and even if there _was_ time in this strange phantom zone she’d fallen into. It felt like it’d been years.

“So, where’s that boyfriend of yours?” Harvey asked, puffing away at the last bits of his cigar (she hadn’t even noticed the dissolution of his smoke or their entrance to the streets of Sherwood).

“He’s in the woods by the high school.” Veronica explained, and kept walking with the stranger in tow.

Harvey looked around, noticing more and more ravens and crows landing atop the rotting roofs and cracking chimneys of the houses up and down the street, on the edges of shops, atop the streetlights long since gone out, on street signs and stop signs and mailboxes. “Holy shit, it’s like _The Birds_ in here!” he laughed despite the nervousness poking through his words.

Veronica didn’t respond, guiding him to the broken and tattered high school. Getting him up the stairs and into the school, she took him into the gymnasium.

Harvey was, of course, confused. He’d noticed how stone-faced she’d gotten, how numb and silent she was. “What the hell is going on here, lady?” he asked, getting angry. “I agreed to come and help you, not to follow you around on a goddamn goose chase to the middle of a gym! Either you explain some shit or I might get - hey, where the fuck are you going!?” he screamed.

Veronica ran out of the gym and locked it shut quickly. She knew she didn’t have to, knew that the monsters would make the doors lock on their own. But even then, she didn’t want any chance of seeing the viscera and bones fly.

Through the door, through the haze of her own horror and the opening of the mental barrier that kept Ronnie from vomiting into the nearest trash can (the same barrier that opened whenever she knew _they_ were going to feed), she heard the growls and giggling of the girls and Harvey, petrified, asking what in the name of God they were. She could hear flesh tearing away from bone and could almost see the blood soaking into every inch of the wood that surrounded them. It was a quick kill, as all of them were. Those girls were like piranhas, consuming everything they could. Veronica knew that all that would be left of him would be his inedible possessions and a few bones that the green one didn’t want.

She also knew that she’d have to be the one to bury everything, making sure it couldn’t be found. Stumbling to a locker, Veronica pressed her head against the cold metal of the door for a few moments. Wrestling it open with a growl that, to her own horror, almost sounded like that of the monsters’, she gazed into the dark and saw the remains of those who’d come before the salesman: five IDs, a couple cheap cameras, completely destroyed phones (that wouldn’t have worked even if they weren’t shattered), drivers’ licenses from Illinois, and a pack of cigarettes with a lighter.

Collapsing onto the stairs of the school, Veronica lit one and began puffing away to try and release the boiling tension inside of her. Six people. She’d caused the death of _**six**_ people, leading them to the creatures so she wouldn’t get killed herself. She knew her mind was starting to rot on her, burning away with every single kill. “I can’t do this anymore, I can’t, I can’t, I **can’t.** ” she said to herself. “This has to end. Those monsters won’t let me go but this has to end.”

Standing and gazing up towards the roof of the school, Veronica knew then what had to be done. Finishing her cigarette and stomping it into the concrete, she walked back inside and into the hazy smell of blood. After burying the skull, toothless of course, and all of the things Harvey had taken with him when he followed her (save for the cigars and lighter, knowing that she’d need them if this didn’t work), she made her final decision.

This had to end, and it had to end tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!


	8. Climbing and Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica tries to make it end.
> 
> Tries being the operative word.
> 
> suicide attempt tw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is for my friend Ariel. happy birthday, friend!

Veronica was almost surprised at the almost pristine condition of the school’s inner stairway. The eggshell paint had faded heavily and a few ravens’ nests rested in the windowsills of the long since destroyed windows, but besides that it was clean. It was like a time capsule, a vision of what might have once been. She could almost see students going up and down it, darting between classes and laughing in the wide-eyed Indian summer of youth. But she shook her head, blinking a few times as the metal stairs curled above her. It wasn’t many flights, but it was still a hell of a climb.

Her trek was made in almost perfect silence. The only sounds that pierced it were the noises of the crows that took flight from their perches as she passed and the noise of her feet hitting each step. She didn’t say a word, dark brown eyes focused on the upper reaches of the school. In her head, she counted each step to 78, when she faced the final plateau and the heavy, black metal door beyond it. The handle was rusted, but still turned with minimal force, and the hinges creaked like old bones as she forced it open.

The roof, like the stairwell, was completely untouched. It was copper, clearly put in a long time ago. Age had touched it, just as it had everything else that wasn’t alive in this town, and the whole of its surface was a pale green from oxidation. It reminded Veronica of the Statue of Liberty. Various bits and bobs were along its surface: the releases for the smoke made in the boiler room, a long broken air raid siren, a few more birds’ nests. Then there was only the ledge of the roof. Taking out her pack of cigarettes and the lighter she’d taken from the storage locker, she sat on the edge and put one into her mouth, lighting it and taking slow drags.

Her mind raced. She thought of her family, frantically looking for her. She could almost see her parents; her mother in her Sunday best and her father in his grey suit with the tie dotted with stars, pleading on cable access for whatever ‘awful _thing_ ’ that had taken their ‘little girl’ away to bring her home. The cameras would roll and her mother would weep and the world would know that it wasn’t crocodile tears by the twist in her voice as she described how Veronica was a light in their lives. Her father wouldn’t weep, but his voice would waver and he’d murmur a prayer and tap the mezuzah when they got home, seeking divine guidance.

She thought of Martha and Betty being interviewed, first by the cops and then by the news media. Martha and Betty were probably the only two people outside her family who were holding onto hope that she wasn’t dead. They’d be holding fliers bearing her name and visage, and Betty would talk about how she refused to give into despair. Martha would nod along, her fear of being filmed getting in the way of her voice, but there would be a sort of misery in both of their eyes. Something unknown and unspoken, but a clear thread tugging them towards the awful truth neither wanted to face.

Almost biting down on the end of the cigarette (a Camel, she remembered) in anger, she thought of Jason. He wouldn’t be questioned too much, he knew how to worm his way under people’s skin, knew just what to say to make you see that his side of the story was ‘right’. Of course he’d cry over Veronica, bawl like a baby when asked by the news people to talk about his devotion to her. Maybe he’d even pour out a Coke (‘her favorite drink’, he’d say) in front of the student body as a symbolic tribute. But once he was alone, he’d wipe his eyes free of the artificial tear solution he’d bought online, get a slushie from 7-11, and drink it as he began trolling the philosophy forums and the dark sides of Tinder and the true crime fan bases online for someone knew to string along. Maybe he’d even call this new girl ‘Sally’, as he’d done for her.

She thought of her school (no doubt they’d mourn her for a week and then move on), the synagogue she’d gone to for years(they’d mourn her properly and Rabbi Abiteboul would help her parents sit shiva), her cat (he’d wonder why she wasn’t coming back, maybe even wait for her like Fry’s dog in _Futurama_ ). She wondered how much time had passed since she left. She wondered if the police knew she was even missing.

Veronica thought and thought and thought, until there was nothing more to think about. ‘Or at least’, she thought as teeth and blood and skin torn asunder from bone filled her mind, shades of yellow and red and green clouding her logic for a moment like some awful disease, ‘nothing I want to think about’. By then she’d smoked the first cigarette down to the filter, threw it off of the edge of the building (noting how long it took for it to fall), and smoked another to the same end.

It was time.

Snuffing out the final cigarette into the palm of her hand, making sure to rub the burning ashes into the ‘A’ branded against her flesh as one last middle finger to the being who’d sewn her to this awful place at the beginning, she stood. She dusted off her clothes, adjusted her hair, and made sure she looked presentable. Once, when she was fourteen and stupid, high off of shitty hairspray and Avril Lavigne, she’d claimed that she was going to ‘die young and leave a pretty corpse’.

“If only you knew, little Ronnie, if only you knew.” she said to herself, and climbed up onto the little ledge. She gazed out across the ghost town, into the neverending fog that stretched out before her like aimless eternity. Sherwood, the resting place of so many other doomed souls, was going to become her resting place too. It would all end here.

Staring into the pale grey haze that bundled the town like a blanket, Veronica stepped off of the edge with her eyes shut and prepared to face oblivion, her heart pounding and then stopping with a silence as loud as a gunshot. 

Then, there was no more.

For a moment, at least.

Then there was laughter. Raw, choking laughter and the clanking of bones surrounded Veronica like an awful orchestra and dragged her forth from the elysium of pitch blackness that had taken her into its arms like a grateful mother.

She sat up, and looked herself over. No harm had been done, save for a thrumming ache through her whole frame. No blood, no guts, no broken limbs, not a scratch. No death. It took everything in Veronica not to burst into tears, and she slowly gazed up at the laughing being above her.

It was the green creature, its teeth now more numerous and jagged than before. The teeth clawed through her hands now where they hadn’t before, poking up through the flesh and dripping crimson upon the ground below. She was hunched at the waist, cackling in a strange stereo that almost made Veronica think it was coming from her innards too, a disgusting mockery of a mouth. But that wasn’t what made her heart stop, not for the first time in this awful place, and made her mind whirl with the most wretched gibbering she’d ever known. It was what the creature did next.

In a clear, mocking voice, a normal voice unmuffled by the fangs that made the being alien and awful, an all too _human_ voice, the creature **spoke**.

“Jesus **_fucking_** Christ, you’re pathetic.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading see you eventually


End file.
